


Horticulture

by Jakobslock



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Developing Friendships, Gardening therapy, Gen, Post-Canon, Team Bonding, it's 7k words of vaughn and tina hanging out, vaughn being trans isn't plot relevant but it's there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-15
Updated: 2019-08-15
Packaged: 2020-09-01 15:43:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20260510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jakobslock/pseuds/Jakobslock
Summary: Brick's decided to get everyone at the Backburner involved in the community garden, whether they like it or not. Vaughn gets roped into helping out, despite his best effort not to, and ends up with a new friend.Who knew that gardening could be so therapeutic?Takes place right after the dlc, Vaughn and Tina hanging out and realizing they've got a lot in common.





	Horticulture

**Author's Note:**

> I've never really written fic before but I've been thinking about these two for weeks, and I kind of just rushed it out so please pardon any errors or mistakes

Ellie said that talking to plants helps them to grow. It was Mordecai who first suggested the garden, still trying to encourage Brick to pick up some other hobbies. Though shoving some plant monster corpses face first into the dirt was decidedly not what Mordecai had in mind, it was, technically, a garden. In a true to himself fashion, Brick had decided to go all in on his new project, dragging everyone in to help, and waking the plants (and everyone else) up at daily at dawn with a bout of loud, enthusiastic shouting for the plants to grow better. Brick's antics were old news to everyone at the Backburner, save for one, who had decidedly mixed feelings about his new neighbors.

After being on his own and trying not to die for a few months, Vaughn had sort of forgotten what it was like to have people around, especially ones with such larger than life personalities. His people at Helios are- were- generally more subdued, save for the ones who decided to go all in on the bandit life. If you could even call them that. The more Vaughn thought about it, on his quest to be a bandit king he may have gotten a bit mixed up on what a bandit actually is. On Helios, before it became a glorified scrap heap, bandit had simply meant "Lives on Pandora" or "Not Hyperion." What that really meant was "Every person down planet side is a lawless savage, and that is why Hyperion has to fix it, because if they weren't bandit savages who ate their own children and never showered, they'd be up here with us, and not down there." Vaughn has started to realize that it wasn't quite that simple. The people who had so kindly decided to move into his camp without asking were definitely not Hyperion, but they definitely weren't bandits either. If they were bandits, they wouldn't have nearly killed him for being a bandit. It's part of the bandit blood pact to not kill other bandits. And Vaughn was fairly certain that bandits didn't have breakfast with each other every morning, or argue about how to raise a kid and her new pet pony, or spend time on something as nonviolent as a community garden.

Yet here he was, elbow deep in the dirt digging a hole for some new flower Tina had brought home. She insisted that he specifically help her, because 'shorty squad's gotta stick together!' or something like that. He tends to lose track of what Tina's saying after the first couple minutes. He tried to get out of it, making some half hearted excuse of needing to check the firewalls but Brick had grabbed him up by the collar and dumped him in the garden. Brick is terrifying, so he guesses he's helping Tina garden. She's holding some pinkish flowery thing that looks like it changes to purple, or blue, or yellow, and smells faintly of bubblegum. Vaughn's half convinced he's hallucinating the shifting colors but when he asks about it, Tina gives him an exasperated eyeroll, explains in slow words like she's talking to a child that it came from buttstallion, and he decides not to ask anything else.

Vaughn gets far enough down that the dirt feels chilled, and sits back on his heels, dropping his trowel to the side. He exhales, shaking the dirt off his arm and looks over at Tina. Her weird flower isn't in a pot, just sitting on the ground between her legs, loose dirt and roots everywhere like she ripped it out of the ground with a bit too much enthusiasm. She's humming to herself, holding some flower petals up like little bunny ears, tapping her feet quickly to some beat he's sure makes sense to her. Somehow.

"Okay, is this deep enough? Also why is this my job, couldn't you, I dunno, just blow up the dirt or something instead of making me do it?" he says, staring down at the ditch and not noticing when Tina jumps up and practically barrels into him, shoving him out of the way.

"Oh SNAP let's check this out! Move, move move move move!" she says with a shout that Vaughn has learned is just her normal speaking voice. He falls back with an 'oof', giving her a halfhearted glare as she practically sticks her entire head down into the dirt. He leans back on his elbows, staring up at the massive rotating fan blade above HQ. He thinks it was part of some giant turbine on Helios, another lifetime ago. Now it's a decorative, useless windmill. A sideways windmill at that, so even more useless than it could have been. Funny how things change. Tina's foot hits against his calf, knocking him out of his musing. She's still got her head in the ground, along with one arm, probably feeling how deep it is. She's saying something, but it's muffled. Vaughn leans over on one elbow and pokes her in the arm, "Tina, I can't hear a single thing you're saying down there."

She pops her head up, dramatically gasping for breath, "I saaaaaid Poppa B's tryin to get everyone into the planty life and he specifically entrusted moi to get you, my bandit man," Tina says, scooting back over to her weird plant to grab it. Vaughn watches her, lightly glaring in confusion and mild annoyance. Tina drags the plant over, practically vibrating with excitement. "This is a MASTERFULLY executed dig, vaughnners, quite a top quality operation in my utmost professional opinion," she says in a weird mock English accent, shoving the plant into the dirt. She busies herself with packing the plant in, the hole far too deep for it, and she ends up burying some of the actual plant in the process, but Vaughn's not about to tell her to stop.

"So, uh," he says, grabbing for his canteen, "Why'd Brick want me to, join the 'planty life'? Is that what he said? Or what you said." Tina gives him another over dramatic eyeroll, laying on her stomach to get an up close and personal look at her plant.

"Bandy man, listen, you're a weird dude. Fun weird yes which ROCKS but also a major issues weirdo, no offensive buddy, not dissin', shorty squad don't diss each other it's in the Pact. Brick's worried about you, says you and me got lots in common with some stuff, and also Mordy says plants are a good hobby and you need a hobby cuz you're weird and sometimes it gets old going going going constantly, you feel me? Sometimes the only cure is good ol fashioned company," Tina says, casual as anything before going right back to her plant. Vaughn blinks, slightly stunned. Processing what Tina said was tricky to begin with but this was a different kind of tricky, not in the deciphering teen babble way but in the 'what the hell is she talking about' way. He tips back onto his elbows again, thinking. Why would Brick be worried about him? He barely knew the guy, and Brick definitely didn't know all that much about him. The guy kind of freaked him out, which he supposes is the normal reaction to someone built like a brick (ha) shithouse, who's twice your height and who's natural speaking volume made the room rattle. It's not that he thinks Brick is a bad guy, Vaughn doesn't think any of them are bad people, they're just all very different from what he's used to. Lilith and her company are a system shock, to say the least. His close experience with people is 95% Hyperion, 5% Fiona, Sasha, and various others whose names he largely doesn't remember, and most of them he doesn't want to anyway.

He looks up, imagines the stars past the atmosphere, and wonders where they are now. Last he heard Fiona and Sasha had used the stacks of cash from Felix to get off-planet. He wasn't sure where they went. Sasha had mentioned wanting to go to a beach that wasn't full of murderers so maybe they're on Aquator, fulfilling Sasha's dream of white fluffy towels and spa days on the water. He'd had their echoline for a while, but after a few weeks Sasha stopped answering his texts. He's still not sure if it's because the off planet communications from Helios didn't work right or because she didn't want to answer. He hopes it's the first but realistically thinks it's the second. His echocomm's long since broke, it was damaged in Hector's initial attack and he hasn't been able to get it working again. Even if it worked though, he probably wouldn't message her again. Sasha wanted to leave Pandora behind more than anything, that means everyone on it, too. Shitty to get in the way of a dream like that, he thinks, by tying her back to Pandora just because he wants some conversation. Vaughn sighs through his nose, moves to lie down with his hands pillowing his head. This part of Pandora doesn't get a lot of clouds generally speaking, but there's a couple little ones trying to survive. One of them is thin and wispy, and after staring at it for a moment he realizes it's a contrail, the white streak of a ship belonging to some other bastard who decided enough was enough and took off for another system. Vaughn doesn't blame them. He hopes they'll be happier, wherever they are. Maybe they're headed to Promethea- shit.

He mentally slaps himself the second his brain decides to mention Promethea, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment. That- he- was not what he wanted, or needed, to be thinking about right now. Not even close, not with the weird nervous jolt he gets whenever it comes up. He inhales, as slowly as he can, and exhales the same, repeating it as the little burst of his pulse evens back out. Everything's fine, he thinks, nothing to freak over. He tries to focus instead on what's around him, snaps back to reality and is suddenly aware of the sound of Tina babbling to someone. He cracks an eye open, looking for whoever decided to join their garden day, but sees no one. Tina's sitting cross legged on the ground, chin in her hands and elbows propped on her knees, talking about trees that eat people to no one. Vaughn squints at her, and flicks her in the arm to get her attention. "Who are you talking to? Were you talking to me because I sort of missed every single thing you said if it was me, sorry kid," he says, actually feeling a bit apologetic for possibly ignoring her.

Tina sticks her tongue out at him, blowing a raspberry right in his face. "Not you, dork! I am speaking with her ladyship, the sparkly mistress of the valley, daughter of her royal majesty Buttstallion, and who's care I have been so grrraciously assigned to oversee" she says, rolling her r's and gesturing grandly to her plant, which now looks mildly translucent and orange. "Talking means growth, man! Where have you been!" At his blank stare she sighs dramatically, reaching over to tap him rapidly on the forehead, "Pay attention!! My main girl Elliekins told Brick talkin to plants helps em grow better, and B's been getting everyone else to talk to em too!" She claps her hand to her chest, over her heart, "as her legal guardian I am REQUIRED to tell mistress here as many badassery filled stories of badass flora as I CAN so she grows up big and strong and ready to smack a bitch, ya get me?" she says, looking at him expectantly.

"Yeah, totally makes sense," Vaughn lies through his teeth. It's silent for a second before he realizes Tina's watching him impatiently, looking between him and the plant, like she's waiting for something. She makes a high pitched stressed humming sound, gesturing at the plant with wide eyes. Vaughn gives her a confused look, "Is something wrong because you're kinda freaking me out-"

"Vaughnathan you are in the presence of Royalty, introduce yourself before I send you to the gallows!" Tina shrieks, looking at him with more offense and disdain than he thought a 13 year old was capable of. "That's not my- oh whatever," he says, propping himself on an elbow to face her more. In the most monotone, disinterested voice he can manage, he looks at her plant and says, "Greetings, your highness, name's Vaughn, resident bandit king, so technically, more royal than you. What's shakin," he gives a finger gun salute before pointedly flopping back down on the ground and throwing an arm over his eyes. He hears Tina giggle, trying to seriously apologize for Vaughn's rudeness to the flower and failing. He tries not to smile and also fails. She goes back to talking about the forest of people eating trees in her Bunkers & Badasses campaign.

Her babbling is soothing in a way, drowns out the background noise and internal monologue and lets him focus on the now. The sun's starting to set, bringing with it a cool breeze that feels like a miracle in the Pandoran desert, even with the faint antifreeze smell it carries with it, and the temperature is finally dropping to a comfortable level. Vaughn pillows his head on his hand again, crossing one leg over the other and he's mildly stunned to find he actually feels relaxed for the first time that day. Sort of ironic, considering the company. Tina is….interesting, to say the least. She's like a firecracker, which she'd probably appreciate given her career choices. Vaughn struggles to keep up with her. She talks a mile a minute and changes the way she talks at least 3 times within that minute, going from old English to awful 'gangster' talk that reminds Vaughn of a sort of racist movie he watched once, to singing to screaming and everything in between. Sometimes though, she does actually settle a bit, though it's rare. She's constantly moving, talking, doing something, jittery like a broken wind-up toy. Vaughn doesn't remember a lot about his early teen years, though he's pretty sure the only thing he had in common with Tina at that age was the pink skirt. She's the girl he would have hid from on the playground for fear of being bullied or roped into extreme dodgeball. Thankfully, Vaughn's a 29 year old man with much more rational fears.

He can admit that he actually likes Tina quite a bit, despite how he acts. There's something refreshing about her attitude, how she's loud and abrasive and unwilling to do anything she doesn't want to. She's an absolute genius kid who can build a bomb out of a paperclip and some skag shit while she carries around a stuffed bunny and gives everything fantasy names. The thing he likes most about Tina, though, is how she takes things at face value. She doesn't come with a ton of prejudice, not at first meeting. His encounters with most everyone on Pandora have gone, well, horribly, as soon as they connect him with the word 'bandit'. Even Ellie, who Vaughn can honestly say he adores, pulled a gun on him on their first meeting. Tina though, when she showed up, didn't try to shoot him or give him dirty looks. She had stared him in the eyes, silently, then grabbed him by the shoulders, shook him violently and excitedly yelled about being able to look someone in the eyes for once before searching his pockets to try and find Hyperion grenades. She'd scared the hell out of him, objectively more than the literal siren and her friends.

Still, out of everyone on team home invasion, she'd been the nicest to him. Especially since officially handing over ownership of Butt Stallion to her, that seemed to have put him in Tina's good books permanently. She'd hugged him, actually hugged him, when he asked her to watch out for the pony. Nearly squeezed the life out of him too, but he was too distracted by trying to remember the last time someone hugged him and trying not to cry to care. Something solid lands on his stomach and he jolts, eyes wide open and it takes Vaughn a second of frantic looking around to realize it's not a grenade or a corpse but Tina's head, as she's apparently decided to use him as a pillow. She's…oddly silent. Vaughn makes himself relax, lying back on the ground an d trying to breathe through his chest instead of his stomach so he doesn't jostle her. This is weird behavior for her, to say the least. He can't tell if she's sleeping or what, she's facing away so he can only see the eyes of her psycho mask, the same model as his. Deciding it's in his best interest to not ask questions, he watches the sunset. Pandora gets surprisingly pretty sunsets, like a slow motion explosion. It fits the planet, really. Beautiful to look at, but deadly. Helios is illuminated, backlight by the red-gold light. If he blinks, it looks like it's up in flames, glowing like an inferno. He blinks again, and remembers that the fires died out month ago. Vaughn starts to drift off a bit, settling down on that line between consciousness and blackout comfortably, when Tina's voice shakes him out of it.

"Hey uh, V-man?" she says, in a voice that makes Vaughn pause.

"Yeah?" he yawns, "what's up kid?" she's quiet, weirdly quiet, and he gently prompts her again, "Tina? Everything ok?" Tina shifts, still facing away from him.

"You know how I said that B-pops said that you and me are similar?"

"Well, yeah?" Vaughn says, "you told me that like, an hour ago. Or less than an hour, or something, remember?" Tina sighs, crossing her arms over her stomach. Vaughn's starting to get worried, this is very un-Tina like.

"You've got dead people, right?" she asks, quietly.

"Well…yeah, of course I do." to say he's caught off guard by her question is a bit of an understatement, but he's curious as to where this is going. Tina shifts a bit, to look up at the first stars of the evening. Her mask starts to dig into Vaughn's stomach. He doesn't mention it.

"What…how'd you get dead people? I mean I kinda know but I wanna hear it from you, if that's cool," Tina asks, and Vaughn swallows.

"That's uh, that sure is a question, isn't it. Wow, um…" he trails off, sucks a breath in hard and exhales through his nose. That's really not at all what he was expecting but he guesses it makes sense. Tina had been in there, Helios. She had to have noticed…things. People shaped things in the corners and piles of broken, jagged metal covered with dried bits of blood and sticky machinery oil. He hopes they didn't go int the main barracks, god he really hopes Tina didn't have to see that just thinking about it makes him-he squeezes his eyes shut, fingers twisting into his hair a bit and pulling. Okay, relax, focus. A hand gently smacks his cheek, and when he doesn't react it comes back and gives him a hard thwap to the nose. "Ow! Hey!" he whines indignantly, flicking Tina's ear and glaring at her even though she can't see him do it. "Uncalled for, man." She giggles a little bit.

"Just gimme the abridged series version, homie, I've told you toooons of cool stories so now it's your turn." She's right, she's told him all about her adventures with Brick and Mordecai and the various vault hunters. He hasn't really told her anything beyond the fact that he used to be Hyperion. He hasn't really told anyone anything. He doesn't know if he's really comfortable with it, and he's not sure how they'll react when they figure out just how involved with everything he is, that he was technically a vault hunter once, that he played a part in Helios and, well, everything else. Lilith wouldn't be happy. But Tina… She's right, after all. He nods to himself, alright then.

"Abridged version, huh? I can do that, probably. I guess it all sort of starts with Hyperion, huh? Which means I used to be a bad guy, though I didn't see it that way then. Everything started with a vault key, which it seems a lot of stuff does, which is sort of weird when you think about it. Anyway, vault key, an asshole coworker, and- and my best friend," Vaughn tells her, and he keeps going. He tells her about August, Sasha and Fiona. She's thrilled by the death race, and demands he takes her one day. He talks about Gortys, and LB, and how they brought the group together. He almost doesn't, but he tells her about Jack, and everything that came with him. She gets quiet, nodding seriously. Vaughn supposes he doesn't really have to explain how horrible Jack is to someone like her. Tina's surprisingly quiet, still lying with her head on his stomach, seemingly enraptured by everything he's saying. He was just going to give her the basics but now he's telling her everything, an unstoppable stream of babble that he finds he can't stop. After not talking about it and trying not to think about it everything is just pouring out all at once. He talks about the Atlas dome, how Vallory gave him his first scar on Pandora and within the next two weeks on his own he got 3 more. He talks about the rocket going up and Helios coming down, silently thanking Tina for not mentioning how his voice cracks.

It's not easy, talking about Helios. He's not really sure what to say, not sure what he can say. Tina gives him an encouraging "Go on," and he takes a second to collect himself, not get too emotional over it. He fails almost immediately. "Helios- when Helios crashed it was a nightmare. Like something out of a horror scene, you know? I saw it comes down and it- It was like watching a movie, you know when things don't actually look real? You look at it and it's more like a really vivid dream it's just so impossible. I lived up there! for almost eight years! It always seemed so, so solid, indestructible," he laughs dryly, looking over at the fractured shell of a space station half buried in the distance, feeling that now familiar closed up feeling settle in his throat, "Guess they lied about that."

"What was it like up there?" Tina butts in, tilting her head a bit to actually look him in the eye, "Lily always said it smelled like B.O. and fascism." Vaughn actually laughs at that, genuinely. "Honestly? She's not wrong," he smiles a bit, "Helios is- was- sort of a contradiction. It wasn't that bad in the beginning, honestly. I started a while before Jack took over. Hyperion always sort of, sucked, but it was a stable job, you know? I was 22 and it was my best offer, and Rhys was already set on working there so, I went with him," Tina gives him a curious look at the mention of Rhys again and he overtly ignores it. "The station was unbelievable, at first. It was so massive, and intricate, and, and beautiful. It really was. It was one massive, enclosed city, functioning as a perfect system. There were hotels, malls, even a freakin water park! Me and Rhys went there once, thanks to this eridium deal he struck when we were younger, there was this water slide that went upside down! Hyperion rewarded its own pretty well," he trails off for a moment, reminiscing. Helios had truly been incredible, for a while at least. "But, after a while, the luster started to…wear off. Have you ever heard of station syndrome?" Tina shakes her head, looking enthralled by everything.

Vaughn exhales through his nose, "It's sort of weird, but it's basically a sort of mental degradation caused by lack of sunlight, gravity changes, claustrophobia… pretty much everything that comes with being stuck in space. It's not anyone's fault but Hyperion treated it as a personal failing. I made the mistake of talking to a doctor at the clinic once about getting on an anti-depressant. Huuuge mistake. I ended up with a minor demotion and a thinly veiled threat of getting shoved out an airlock if I couldn't keep up with Hyperion's demand. You either sucked it up, or got booted. Which led to the people up there being the most headstrong bunch of assholes you can imagine. Ten thousand self-absorbed, stubborn jackasses in a metal box in space together." Tina's eyes widen.

"Wooooah, ten thousand??" she gasps. Vaughn's not sure why she's so surprised, Hyperion wasn't a small operation.

"I mean, yeah? It was a big station, kid." Her expression falls into a mixed of confused and upset, her big blue eyes looking a little less bright.

"But if there were that many then why are you…" it's phrased as a question but the look in her eyes tells him she knows the answer already, Vaughn's heart crashes to his feet. He'd really been trying to avoid this part of the story. But now, he supposes he has to stop running from it at some point, right?

"Alone, right? You were gonna say alone," He absently pats her hand where it rest on his stomach, trying to seem reassuring. "There's, well there's two reasons I guess, but they're both something I kind of…caused. When Helios fell, people tried to get to escape pods, but Helios was only built with about five hundred of them. They were meant for the higher ups, executives, division heads, not the regulars, like me, or most people. So, well, lots of people couldn't get to the pods. Or they couldn't find one. Some malfunctioned, a lot crashed after they were launched, some people managed to get a pod, or a supply ship or something, but everyone else…" His mind is almost instantly overwhelmed with visions of twisted metal and fire, broken glass and broken everything. The screaming is as vivid in his mind as the day it happened. The smell though, that had been the worst. Vaughn knows he won't ever get the smell of burning people out of his head, it had lingered over the crash like a cloud, for months. First from the fires that sprung up as the ship crashed, the people who were killed in the wreck and the ones who were trapped inside it still… Then from the pits. When Vaughn got there, he'd found way more corpses than he did survivors. They spent weeks scouting, hoping in desperation to find loved ones, friends, still alive and not a rotting corpse. Some got lucky, most didn't. Between the dead and the dying, they were overwhelmed.

They'd ended up just piling everyone into giant pits, trying to burn them away before Pandora's monsters came looking for a next meal. He'd tried to keep track of names, then he tried to keep track of numbers, then after a few hundred he lost track all together. The smell stuck, in your hair, in your throat, sticking to your lungs and your nose like a film, following you wherever you went. It was inescapable, a horrible, toxic reminder. Vaughn realizes he'd been holding his breath, inhaling sharply, only half convinced the acrid smell in his mind wasn't filling his lungs again. Tina gives his hand a little squeeze, watching him, and he nods at her, smiling in a way he hopes doesn't make him look insane.

"We had about four hundred people at Helios. Couldn't find most other, buried the ones we could. I held a small funeral for Rhys, figured he was good as dead, same as the girls. We just… tried to move on, make something for ourselves on Pandora. We did a pretty good job, if I say so myself. Even figured out how to get hot water in some areas. Some of the guys fixed up a couple digistruct machines, so we could make some vehicles and basics like cots and sheets of metal to make walls and stuff, and some loaders to help out. Even had a garden going, at one point! Got tired of eating skag and Hyperion brand hard tack. A lot of the guys took up bandit nicknames, we got some cool armor, really played up the whole thing. Then Rhys came back, we fought a vault monster, it was totally ass-kicking awesome, you should ask zer0 about it sometime! Coolest. Thing. Ever. And also the most terrifying, but cool terrifying!" Tina smiled wide at that, turning over and propping herself on her elbows.

"That is the most badass of all things a human can do in the history of EVER! Vault monsters are the ultimate baddie!!" She says, wiggling a bit and grinning at him.

Vaughn nods, a little arrogantly, "Yeeep, I'm one of the few people to ever kill one! Even though I didn't really. Do much. But I organized it! And! Hey! It was my base's laser that killed it," Tina laughs at him in a 'yeah, sure' fashion, and Vaughn scoffs indignantly, "It was a team effort! You're the worst." She just giggles harder, rolling her eyes.

"You gotta introduce me to your vault hunting homies sometime man! Especially Fiona she sounds ah-maze-ing," Tina says, "and suuuuuper gorgeous I'm just sayin," she adds on with a wink.

Vaughn snickers, "Yeah, she's pretty cool. Girls aren't exactly my type, out of team Hollowpoint I go more for August, but Fiona's definitely one of the prettier ones I've ever met. If I ever figure out where she is, I'll introduce you, bandit's honor," he says with an overexaggerated wink back. She doesn't smile though, instead looking confused.

"What d'you mean? Did she get kidnapped?" Tina's voice is a bit distraught. Vaughn's a little irritated, he didn't think he made Fiona sound that cool, jeez.

"No, no, she's fine, probably. She and Sasha left Pandora a little before Rhys did. I lost contact with them after a bit, interplanetary stuff maybe? Even if I knew how to reach them I can't, I busted my echo to crap in the Helios attack. I don't think they'd want to-"

"Waitwaitwait, all of them left??" Tina interjects, growling a little. She looks a bit like a rabid teddy bear, Vaughn thinks. "What do you mean they left! Who does that! Who doesn't CALL!" She angrily gestures at nothing before falling face first onto him with a disgusted noise. He didn't get why she was upset over it. Him being upset makes sense, sure, but Tina had never met them. What was she missing out on? She didn't have to deal with her family leaving her, never calling, never bothering to check in, kicking him off like mud scraped off the bottom of a boot. Sasha, Fiona, August, why would they bother coming back? What did they have with him around other than a reminder of everything that went wrong? He knows that's why Rhys left too, though that one he'll never really get over. He can blame Rhys at least, he can't bring himself to blame the rest of them.

"Well, yeah, of course they did. The girls wanted to get off Pandora and Rhys- Rhys has much more important thing to do than hang around some backwater dirtball. They all do, they all needed to get away from Pandora," and away from me, he doesn't say. Tina looks no less pissed, in fact, she looks angrier. She shoves herself up, before he can realize what's happening, and she has her hands on his shoulders, pushing him into the dirt, face inches away from his as she stares at him with a manic glint in her eyes.

"When you was talkin' about them I thought they were dead! That's the only excuse to leave people behind, you never ever ever EVER leave family behind!" She yells in his face, pushing down on his shoulders more and more, "What if Brick left Mordy behind! Or we left Buttstallion behind?? Or-or if Roland left me behind!!-" Vaughn's stunned into silence, even as Tina's anger rapidly vanishes and her eyes well up with tears. She climbs off of him, sitting on the ground. He cautiously pulls himself up to a cross legged position. She's sitting with her arms crossed, sniffling with a murderous look on her face. He's not sure what the hell that was but he definitely does not have time to unpack all that. He shoves his goggles off his head, running a hand through his hair. A broken nail snags on it but he doesn't notice. Fingers absently dragging down the back of his neck where his hair used to be. He misses the long hair a bit, it was nice while it lasted. He got caught in a minor explosion when they were trying to escape Helios and he'd had an issue involving fire and his hair near being yanked out by a plant monster, so he hacked it off with a buzz axe. Maybe he'll grow it out again. He rubs the back of his neck, trying to figure out how to word things.

"Look kid- Tina- they didn't mean to leave. Well, they did, but not because they wanted to ditch me or something. They have other things to do, big things like vault hunting and running a company and- you can't really do those on Pandora. I stayed behind on purpose, I had a responsibility to the people at Helios and I was gonna keep it. I chose to be here. I owed it to everyone, I was part of the reason they were stuck here, I couldn't just leave them behind, right?" He doesn't look to see if she's listening, his eyes are fixed on the weird flower, glowing a mildly translucent fuchsia now. He swallows hard, "What happened… What happened to everyone wasn't Rhys' fault, or Fiona, or Sasha. It was just mine. I was the leader and I for some stupid reason thought we could survive on planet murderball by not fighting, not training, not doing anything more than self-defense stuff with laser pointers. S-so," he pauses, the tight feeling in his throat again. He swallows, breathing hard through his nose and twisting his hand into his hair again, pulling harder than he should.

"So when Hector- when he took the loaders and made them kill us, we couldn't do anything. There were too many, we didn't even have working guns mostly, and the digistructs kept making more and more of them. They shot most of us, burned a lot too. We retreated deeper into Helios but then that plant faced fu-jerk figured out how to wake up Uranus, and it was…" He squeezes his eyes shut tightly, trying to just focus, "It was bad. Really, really bad. So we ran, the few of us who were left. We got separated, I came here with about 20 people I think? And then Hector sent the vines to finish us off." Vaughn goes quiet, looking out to his poorly made cemetery on the edge of the backburner, the tops of the headstones illuminated in the sunset like cinders. He remembers all of their names, their faces, and what it was like to kill them. He blinks quickly, eyes watering, and looks down at the dirt. "And, well, you know what happened next I guess. I tried to find others, keep the flag up, but…" He doesn't want to talk about it, how badly he failed, how any survivors likely don't want anything to do with him, and very abruptly wants to be anywhere else but right here. The second he tries to stand up, he's hit by something and then he's got an armful and a lapful of teenage girl who's arms are so tight around him he feels like he's choking. "Uh, Tina? What-"

"Blaming yourself is really stupid," she cuts him off, voice a little muffled, "You didn't do anythin man, bad stuff happens you know? Hector and the plant crew were a bunch of big dumb jerks and it's their fault people died." Tina's voice is a little strained and Vaughn feels himself getting choked up again. Bandits never cry, he tells himself, but a couple tears slip out anyway, making thin trails through the dirt on his cheek. He gently returns the hug, rubbing her back a little bit. "Bad people do bad stuff and good people die, and tryin to lie about it or change it or say it's your fault makes it worse, like when my mommy and daddy and Roland and Sanctuary and almost Mordy died." she squeezes him tighter and he does the same back, her voice getting watery now, "bad stuff happens, right? It's not because of good people." Vaughn listens, and somewhere in the despair cocktail brewing in his insides, a bubble of anger rises up. When he was 13 he was trying to convince his mom to let him go to a boys summer camp instead of the girls and panicking over an 8th grade honor roll speech, not dealing with a bunch of dead or near dead people and trying to cope with it. Suddenly, Tina makes a lot more sense to him. He wishes she didn't.

"Yeah, I, yeah, I guess you're right. You're a weirdly wise teenager," she sniffles, but gives him a little laugh, thumping him on the back with her fist.

"Damn straight I am, the OG wiseman," she says, and Vaughn smiles despite himself. He thinks for a second, makes a mental note to ask Moxxi who Roland is. Whoever he was, he was pretty important to Tina, he knew that much. All of Lilith's crew were, it seemed, Tina really cared about them. Especially Brick and Mordecai, he's heard her call them her parents several times. It takes a village to raise a teenage bomb expert, or something. He clears his throat, patting her back again. Her mask scrapes his cheek as she leans back to look at him.

"Look kid- Tina- I know it doesn't change stuff and that you haven't known me long but for the record, I'm really sorry you've lost people. No kid should have to deal with that, and I know that Mordecai getting, uh, sick, really scared you." She's giving him an indecipherable look, eyes a little red, "And I know… I know how hard it is to try and deal with this stuff, you can only distract yourself for so long, you know? It gets tiring and then you end up climbing into a washer and crying for like, 3 hours. Uh, anyway. What I'm getting at is that, even though we haven't known each other long, if you need to talk to someone like this, my door's always open. Trust me, dealing with this alone sucks and if I'm having so many problems as an adult I can't imagine what you're dealing with as a kid, so, the offer's open." He finishes with a sharp exhale and what he hopes is a reassuring smile. Tina sniffles quietly, staring him down until he has to look away because it's getting weird. She shoves her hand in his face and he jerks back a little.

"You pinky promise?" She says, holding her hand up. She's sticking her pinky out, and Vaughn stares for a second before grinning, linking his pinky with hers.

"Pinky promise, Tina. Bandit's honor." They both shake their hands with their pinkies locked, sealing the deal. They sit in comfortable silence after that, Tina shifts off Vaughn's lap to sit next to him as they watch the last bits of sunlight disappear behind Helios, a fire going out. Tina rests her head on Vaughn's shoulder, eyes half closed. He smiles down at her softly, even though she can't see it. He thinks about her question, the one he didn't answer, about her and him being similar people. Right now, they seem pretty similar, but this is also the calmest he's ever seen Tina. Usually she's running around like something's chasing her, speaking at a scream and screaming in a range only dogs could hear. She's loud and energetic and makes a point to constantly misuse outdated slang and weird accents, her personality bigger than anyone else's. But the last couple of hours, she hadn't been like that, or not as much. Like once she stopped moving everything came to a halt, her persona slipping away to show a surprisingly thoughtful, empathetic kid who's been through enough crap for three lifetimes.

Vaughn can relate to that, thinking about how he's been clinging to being a bandit with a sort of desperation, giving it 110%, all out obnoxious Pandoran Bandit, because if he's a Pandoran Bandit he doesn't have to be a Hyperion Accountant or a Failed Leader or a Last Survivor. At night, though, or when he was alone, whenever he had too much time to think and not enough to distract him, things crashed back down to earth. He's taken to sleeping on the porch most nights so he doesn't wake up the very large, scary looking psycho he's been sharing a room with as a result of the nightmares. Usually he wakes up crying with a racing heart, but some nights it's screaming, and he thinks he might freak out the psycho, Craig or something. He's not particularly keen on a buzz axe to the head so he takes his nightly crisis outside, sitting in the shadow of Helios. He doesn't think he'll ever get out of that shadow, it'll follow him for the rest of his life, smothering him in the moments where he stops moving and everything else stops and crashes. Maybe relying on an over the top persona isn't the best coping mechanism, but it's what he has.

Vaughn blinks, snapping out of his daze. Oh, that's what Brick meant by him and Tina being similar. He looks over at Tina's flower, glowing green in the twilight, and bites his lip, trying not to laugh. Of all the people to run into who might get how he handles things, a weird, teenager girl would Not have been his guess. His shoulders shake as he fails not to giggle at the absurdity and chance of it all. He shakes Tina out of her daze and she rolls her eyes at him laughing at nothing.

"You're a total weirdo, what's so funny anyway?" She asks. Vaughn shakes his head.

"Nothing, don't worry about it, but remind me to give Brick a sincere thank you fist bump later." Tina shrugs, seemingly accepting that as an answer. She gets to her feet, stretching and nearly losing her balance.

"Dang it got dark, Brick's probably gonna be wonderin' where we are." She holds her hand out and he takes it, pulling him to his feet with a surprising amount of force. He rolls his head, wincing at the way his neck cracks.

"God, yeah, I'm starving, who knew gardening could take so much out of you, huh?" Vaughn says, shaking the loose dirt out of his hair. Tina pats his chest,

"Vaughn my man, my main man, I owe you something BIG, big time. The mistress would never have flourished without your oh so gracious graciousness," Tina says, before picking up the trowel and tapping both of his shoulder, "I hearby declare you… The royal knight of the valley! A most bomb-ass title if I do say so myself, you're welcome!" She gestures grandly, and Vaughn rolls his eyes, smiling, looks like Tina's back. He wants to make a comment about how Brick effectively forced him into helping, but bites it back. Instead, he bows as dramatically and obnoxiously as he can.

"I will carry the title with honor, my lady!" He says, and she laughs, pumping her first in victory. She turns to give the flower a gentle kiss, and Vaughn thinks he hears her say thank you as she softly strokes the petals. She jumps back up suddenly, with an "Oh!", grabbing his hand.

"I forgot I forgot I FORGOT," she shouts, and before Vaughn can ask what she takes off running for the camp, dragging Vaughn behind her. He laughs, bewildered.

"Tina what are you doi-" "I have something IMPORTANT for you and I FORGOT," she yells, cutting him off. They race back to the camp, and Vaughn can't stop laughing even when he's out of breath. When they get back to the camp, Ellie immediately drags Vaughn into helping set the table. Tina vanishes, and Vaughn ask, even when she reappears later when everyone gathers up for dinner. For the first time, Vaughn actually takes part in conversation, telling stories and jokes, and he doesn't even flinch when Brick's booming laugh shakes the room. It’s comfortable, he feels less like an outsider, more like part of the gang. There’s something inside him that feels a lot less heavy. Tina sits right next to him, and when she tells everyone about their gardening earlier he can feel eyes on him. He looks over to see Moxxi smiling at him. She gives him a wink and he smiles back, genuinely.

It's a few hours later when everyone finally goes to settle down for the night. Vaughn treks back to his room after cleaning up, only to find the pyscho, Krieg, standing in the middle of the room, looking at his nightstand, "Uh," Vaughn starts, a bit weirded out, "Everything good, man?" Krieg doesn't answer, but he moves to the side and points to the new object on Vaughn's nightstand. He finds himself grinning so hard it hurts, walking over to pick up the little potted, multicolor flower, sparkling in pink in the beams of moonlight from the roof. The plant is smaller than the one in the garden, with one big bloom. The little pot looks like it was taped back together, and it's got a painting of a little bunny head on the side. He sets it back down, still smiling to himself.

"Guess I'll have to come up with a name for you, huh little guy?" Vaughn coos, gently brushing the petals with his thumb, "I have so many stories to tell you."


End file.
